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2008 Linux Graphics Survey Results

12-22-2008, 10:00 AM

Phoronix: 2008 Linux Graphics Survey Results

Last week our annual Linux Graphics Survey ended. There were over 14,000 submissions this year to the eleven questions we asked pertaining to X.Org, Linux desktop usage, and graphics hardware. In this article are all of the results from this year's survey.

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I'm surprised that more people are interested in KMS than in DRI2, although most of them complain about video tearing and not being able to play 3D games while having a composite manager turned on (and the DRI2 should solve that problem with proprietary drivers like fglrx). For that reason, I've disabled my desktop effects, although I was able to play videos without tearing whilst using an open source radeon driver. The problem was that this driver couldn't give enough FPS while playing 3D games, and it lacked power play, which I require a lot, because I'm using linux on my laptop. (Currently I'm using catalyst 8.12)

Comment

I'm surprised that more people are interested in KMS than in DRI2, although most of them complain about video tearing and not being able to play 3D games while having a composite manager turned on (and the DRI2 should solve that problem with proprietary drivers like fglrx). For that reason, I've disabled my desktop effects, although I was able to play videos without tearing whilst using an open source radeon driver. The problem was that this driver couldn't give enough FPS while playing 3D games, and it lacked power play, which I require a lot, because I'm using linux on my laptop. (Currently I'm using catalyst 8.12)

I agree. I look forward to DRI2 a lot more than to KMS too.

What is so special about KMS? A flicker-free boot experience doesn't seem very important to me, I mean, it's only 50 seconds, who cares!?

If your boot time is so long you get annoyed by some flickering, you should seriously consider buying a new pc/hardware. KMS also allows for BSOD-like error messages, but quite frankly, I am happy to say that I (almost) never have a complete chrash here on Ubuntu. It's not windows, damnit!

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What is so special about KMS? A flicker-free boot experience doesn't seem very important to me, I mean, it's only 50 seconds, who cares!?

Exactly.

But I am equally surprised about DRI2 coming in 2nd... because everything works just fine as long as compositing is turned off. And who needs nonsense like wobbly windows etc? It just slows down the User-Computer interaction. At least I have better things to do than look at "cool" (aka overhyped) desktop effects, eg like actually use my computer.

Meanwhile, seriously useful things like MPX, get almost no interest at all. Just imagine how great it would be to have 2+ users play the same game using mouse&keyboard (things already taken for granted eg on eg XBOX and PS) and/or have the kid manage their cartoons watching on one screen while daddy surfs the net or writes an email, completely without disturbing each other.

My only explanation, people taking part in these type of surveys mostly are the ones that get dazzled by latest graphics hype of no real use, and couldnt care less for actually useful features.

Comment

But I am equally surprised about DRI2 coming in 2nd... because everything works just fine as long as compositing is turned off. And who needs nonsense like wobbly windows etc? It just slows down the User-Computer interaction. At least I have better things to do than look at "cool" (aka overhyped) desktop effects, eg like actually use my computer.

Meanwhile, seriously useful things like MPX, get almost no interest at all. Just imagine how great it would be to have 2+ users play the same game using mouse&keyboard (things already taken for granted eg on eg XBOX and PS) and/or have the kid manage their cartoons watching on one screen while daddy surfs the net or writes an email, completely without disturbing each other.

My only explanation, people taking part in these type of surveys mostly are the ones that get dazzled by latest graphics hype of no real use, and couldnt care less for actually useful features.

One reason why KMS may have come before DRI2 may be that many users still don't understand what DRI2 is. Or at least thats the impression I got when I asked around the office today about why they voted what on the survey.

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Not sure how many folks taking the survey feel this way, but my main interest in KMS is that it can at least help with making suspend/resume more robust.

Then again, it seems like every year the survey results indicate that new features and opengl performance are more important than stability and solid suspend/resume; but the forum posts seem to lean heavily the other way.

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I think I just voted for the less sought after freatures... MPX especially, since that would allow easy multi-seat configuration.

@bridgman I think opengl performance is quite important for people that use hardware where drivers aren't on par as what they could get in Windows. I don't play often, but having to get a Windows install to do so, or buy another hardware (= console) would be painful, even if it wouldn't be used as much as suspend/resume.

You can work around suspend/resume (you can still save your session and shutdown...) and it's also improved a lot. You can't work around having dismal opengl performance (installing Windows is a bad workaround, and buying another graphic card isn't convenient either).

However, I'd put Gallium3D over proprietary OpenGL performance, but mostly because Nvidia's solutions works great already, and Galluim3D would add its own advantages without removing what 40% of Linux users already enjoy